Sensory urbanism is a form of investigation of how non-visual information defines a city's character and affects its livability. Using methods that range from sound tracks and smell maps, wearables and virtual reality, researchers in this area have introduced other senses to urban centers.
According to David Howes, a researcher in Sensory Urbanism and author of The Sensory Studies Manifesto, people have become used to just looking at the city and forgetting to smell, hear and touch it.
Howes is taking an ethnographic approach, using observation and interviews to develop a set of best practices for good sensory design in public spaces. Other researchers are embracing high-tech, using wearable devices to track biometric data, such as heart rate range, as a gauge of emotional responses to different sensory experiences. The EU-funded GoGreenRoutes project pursues this approach as it studies how nature can be integrated into urban spaces to improve human and environmental health.
